Murphy slowed his rhythm, enough to stop her from falling over the edge, enough to tease her until she thought she was going crazy. His cock dragged gently against her pussy, his movements slick and sure.
When Rachel tried to buck against him, chasing her own release, he curled his fingers against her ass, digging them into the soft flesh. He squeezed it, pushing his palm down hard, and she turned her head to see what he was doing.
“I want to spank your ass.” He squeezed again. Her breath hitched and she closed her eyes.
She turned her head a little more, enough to catch his eye. “Do it.”
He hit her hard, making the skin of her ass pink up. For a long, agonizing minute, he kept her clinging to the edge, mumbling desperately; her eyes squeezed shut as she tried not to come too soon, desperate to prolong her pleasure.
He gave a deep, rough thrust, and she squeezed him tight, the pulsing making everything feel good. He pulled back a little, muttering, “Give it to me. Come on, baby.”
She was on the edge and her whole body stilled, pausing a moment before tumbling over into release. Her chest shook, her moans were muffled by the baize beneath her head, and Murphy continued to fuck her hard, her spasms milking his cock. She soared high and far, biting her lip to stop the shouts that wanted to escape, spasms wracking her body as her pleasure peaked.
“Like that, just like that.” He collapsed on top of her, his cock pulsing inside, quieting his groans with her skin. His weight pinned her to the table, and she couldn’t move. She didn’t have enough strength to even try. Her eyelids drooped, her legs like jelly hanging from the table.
“Are you okay?” His voice was a murmur as he knelt beside her. She nodded her head, unable to speak, having no energy to do anything at all. Her eyes were drooping when she felt his gentle hands scoop her up, lifting her naked body against his. He carried her upstairs with rhythmic movements, placing her on the soft mattress of her bed. She felt it dip as he climbed in beside her, holding her tightly against him.
“Sleep,” he whispered in her ear, stroking her hair gently with one hand, cupping her behind with the other to mold her against him. She felt her eyes close, her body on the edge of giving in to sweet oblivion. In spite of her need to plan, to work out how she was going to get out of this, her body was acquiescent in his arms.
Her last thought before succumbing to nothingness was she only had a few hours left until morning came.
Chapter Five
Before she opened her eyes, she could feel the warmth of Murphy’s chest against her cheek and smell the familiar fragrance of his body. His hand moved down to stroke her back, fingers feathering against her skin.
“I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I was out for the count.” It took a few moments for her lids to become unglued.
Murphy rolled on to his back, pulling her toward him until she was curled against his side, her head resting on his chest. Even though it was a strange parody of a lovers’ embrace, she allowed herself to be held. Allowed herself to feel good for a while.
“Are you still planning to take me to David?” Just saying his name was enough to start the tremors again, and she felt Murphy’s arms tighten around her in response. She didn’t want to like his concern as much as she did.
Murphy cleared his throat, throwing his free arm across his eyes. It was like he was trying to block everything out.
“No.” A deep breath was followed by a loud exhale. “I just need to work out what to do.”
There was something behind his words that made her alert. “What do you mean?” She wasn’t sure she understood. There was a wariness in his demeanor that made her feel unnerved, like she was tiptoeing around jagged glass.
His other arm released her, both hands rising to his face, rubbing at his skin like it was itching badly. She waited through his silence, letting him think things through. It was a minute before he spoke. “I owe him a lot of money.” His voice was a monotone. “This was my way of repaying the debt.”
“You owe him?” Rachel frowned. “Why?”
Murphy laughed, and the short bark made her flinch. She pulled the covers closer around her body, blocking out the chilly air. “I got into a few debts. Gambling mostly.” He rubbed his eyes again. “I guess I thought I’d get back on a winning streak.”
“You lost to David?”
He shook his head. “No, I owed some other guys the money. David bought the debt. When he found out what I did, he offered to clear it if I brought you back. You and the money you stole.”
“I didn’t steal anything.” Her pulse ran a little faster. Of all the things to be angry about, this was the one that riled her the most. David had taken away everything he could, but her integrity remained intact. To know he’d placed a great big question mark over it in the eyes of his friends made her blood boil.
Murphy’s voice was strained. “I know that now.”
She turned over, the bed creaking with the old springs groaning under their combined weight. “So what are you going to do?” Rachel wasn’t sure why she asked the question. Part of it was a niggling fear he could still take her back, maybe use her as collateral. But more than that, she didn’t want to see him get hurt.
“I’ll tell him you escaped. Try and find another way to work off the debt.” But Murphy didn’t sound convinced as he spoke the words.
“David doesn’t like it when things don’t go his way.”
“Tell me about him. What did he do to you?” His voice was full of emotion, and she wanted to bury herself in it.
She closed her eyes as she spoke. “I met David at a sex party. It was the first time I’d been to one. An ex had introduced me to rope play, so when I was invited, I was curious enough to go.” Behind her drawn lids she could picture the private club in downtown Boston, where she’d had to show three forms of ID before even being allowed inside. The whole place reeked of money and entitlement. “It was an exclusive club. I was only twenty-two and easily impressed. David was thirty-five, a rich lawyer with a thriving practice. As soon as I walked in, he made a beeline for me.”
“You liked him?”
She shrugged. “It’s hard to remember. My early memories of him are so fucked up by the later ones that sometimes I don’t know what I thought. I let him fuck me over a whipping stool, and the following evening I went around to his house for dinner.”
“The one he still lives in?”
“Yes, he inherited it from his father. You can imagine how impressed I was, all that wealth tied up in bricks and mortar. I was barely out of school, up to my eyeballs in debt.” Just talking about those days made her want to throw up. “After we ate, he took me on a tour. His playroom was impressive. He had every whip, flail, flogger, and cane you could possibly want. From the moment I stepped in there, I was enthralled. It wasn’t difficult to follow his every command.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.”
Rachel nodded. He was right. It sounded like a fairly normal relationship for a couple who enjoyed the same sexual preferences. That’s why she was a fool.
“Have you heard of Stockholm Syndrome?”
“Yeah?”
“I sometimes wonder if I had a bit of that going on. He didn’t start off heavy. At first we both liked the pain, the way the welts crisscrossed my skin like a checker board. Afterward I’d stare at them for hours, touching them to remember the agony.”
It was hard, admitting this. She felt like she had some culpability in the way it ended up. She should have known from the start he was a sadistic bastard.
“We both liked to play. For the first year it was good. I was still doing some studying, and he liked me being home when he finished work. Sometimes we’d go out and eat, other times we’d go straight to bed. We had fun, you know?”
“So what happened?” Murphy’s voice brought her back out of her thoughts.
“It wasn’t like one day he tied me up and left me for dead.” Her heart was starting to hammer in her chest, like the danger was still present. “It was a gradual thing, like that boiling frog story. The bastard knew exactly how far to push me every single time. And little by little, he took the power from me until my safe word meant nothing. He wasn’t a Dom, he was a sadist. A fucked up, messed-up-in-the-brain asshole.”
It felt good to say those words, to spit them out for the first time. She’d never vocalized her thoughts about him before—never had the opportunity to. Knowing Murphy believed her gave her hope.
“I think things got bad at work, or he got involved in something he shouldn’t have. He stopped taking me out for dinner and would hole himself up in the study instead. He sat in front of his computer for hours. When he came out, he’d be furious and expect me to do everything he demanded.” She cleared her throat. “The first time he didn’t stop when I used my safe word, he cried for an hour.”
Her lungs felt tight, like they were congested. It was becoming hard to get the words out. “We talked about it afterward and I forgave him. I said we could get over it, but we didn’t.” Getting over it was an understatement. Things had gotten so much worse after that first time, the pain almost unendurable. By the time Rachel realized things were out of her control, it was too late. She’d already become his victim.
She curled up into a tight ball, like it would protect her from the memories. Talking about David for the first time in a year hadn’t done anything but make her anxious and fearful. Her heart raced at the thought of being made to see him again.
It would end her. Emotionally, she wouldn’t survive.
Murphy shifted in the bed, turning onto his side so he was facing her. She dragged her gaze down his smooth, rippled stomach.
His voice was low. “How did you get out?”
The need to have him close made her body ache. She moved toward him, wanting the protection of his warm skin against hers.
“David went away for a few days. I think it was a conference, though by this time he really didn’t talk to me much. He used to keep me chained when he went out and left me a bowl of water in case I got thirsty.”
Warmth flooded her cheeks at the memory. Lying there, next to a big man who hadn’t hurt her once, she wondered how she’d ever let herself fall so low. In her rational mind, she knew victims always blamed themselves, but rationality disappeared in the face of fear.
Murphy pulled her closer. He was holding her so tight it almost hurt. She wasn’t sure who he was trying to protect: herself or him. She dipped her head into his chest, her voice muffled by his skin.
“David was running late, bitching under his breath about missing the plane. I think he’d mislaid some papers, because he was looking in every drawer, slamming every cupboard. Finally, he found them and left, and in the heat of the moment, he forgot to padlock me. Even then, I stayed curled up under the table for an hour, convinced he’d realize his mistake and come back.
“By some miracle, he didn’t return. I kept waiting and waiting, expecting him to come in and roar at me, tell me it was all my fault. I think the fear kept me chained stronger than the metal links ever could.”
Her heart was beating like a drum against her rib cage. Talking about it was enough to change her back into Lucy Eversleigh, wife and victim.
“Eventually, I crawled out of the room on my hands and knees and made my way to the bathroom. When I glanced up at the mirror, I saw this girl with a metal collar around her neck and a chain hanging from it. I stared at her, seeing her pale face and dark shadows, and I hated her so much. She was weak and pathetic, and I wanted her gone. Before I knew it, I’d ripped off the collar and threw it into the glass to make it shatter.”
She was ugly crying now. Fat, hot tears escaped from her eyes, mixing with the snot running from her nose. Her sobs were loud and uneven, ending in wails that made Murphy flinch. He rubbed his hands in reassuring motions on her back, murmuring soft words of consolation.
“If it wasn’t for the broken glass, I probably wouldn’t have left. But I knew if he came home and found a smashed mirror, I was going to be punished. I don’t mean a few lashings, or even the cane, because even though that shit hurts, I could take it.” Her voice broke. “He really liked to cut me and watch me bleed. Sometimes he’d do it so much I’d pass out from the blood loss.”
She could still feel the cuts on her legs, the way the blood pooled on the floor as he watched. Afterward, when she managed to drag herself up from the tiles, he used to make her clean it up.
“You were lucky to make it out alive.” Murphy’s voice was a growl. “How did you end up in West Virginia?”
“I hitched rides. I went wherever the trucks took me. Eventually, at a rest stop in Virginia, I got picked up by a guy delivering beer. That’s how I ended up at here at Buddy’s.” She could remember the day she walked into the bar, dark hair falling limply over her pale face, hoping nobody noticed the scars.
“He took you in?”
Rachel nodded, biting her lip. Tears stung at her eyes as she thought of Buddy, of the way he’d offered her a home. They spilled out, burning a trail down her cheeks, pooling at her mouth. She didn’t want to cry and hated feeling weak, but her body hitched as sobs wracked through it. The emotion of the night before and the paralyzing fear of seeing David again was enough to push her to the edge of reason. She curled into a ball, trying to gain control of her feelings, enough to stem the flow.
Then she felt a hand, warm and calloused but gentle against her skin. He brushed her tears away, then moved his thumb beneath her chin, tipping her face to look up at him. She stared at his face—hardened and unreadable. He curled his other arm around her waist.
He held her for minutes, letting her sob it out, waiting patiently as her muscles unwound enough to make her relax. She could feel his gaze burning her skin, his intensity making her raw.
Eventually, she gained enough control to let herself breathe normally again.
“You okay?” He tipped his head to the side and looked at her.
She nodded. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to …” She took a deep breath. “I’m so fucking scared, you know? I don’t want to go back to him. The thought of him hurting me again …” Her voice cracked.